For all the saints
Sir: The otherwise admirable P.J. Kavanagh takes me to task (26 November) for assuming in a Radio 4 talk that there was something quaint about All Saints' Day. He even writes that, because I was previously unsure of the date of that day, he gets the impression that 'a hefty hunk of our common European heritage had somehow become mislaid, that we were drifting away from the Continent, a complacent ignorant raft...' The loss of our European heritage is a heavy load to put on the shoulders of someone who is only unsure of a date.
Luckily, being a Church of England agnostic, I have the kind of shoulders off which most loads slip easily, so I come bouncing back to put the point that, yes, there is something quaint about All Saints' Day. I had the kind of education which sent me to chapel twice a day for ten years, so I ended up fairly aware of the important church dates of the year. I mastered Advent, Easter, Whit, Trinity Sunday and others; there was even a time when I could have explained Sexagesima. But for some reason All Saints' Day was one feast that did not figure largely, if at all. I think the reason must be that it is more specifically a Catholic feast than the others, and thus I came to it late in life, as I have also come late to Yom Kippur and Ramadan.
In late October I was travelling in Louisiana, a largely Catholic state, and was interested to see all sorts of All Saints' Day goodies on sale. I don't think I have ever seen this before. My mistake has obviously been to spend previous Octobers in non- Catholic parts of the world. Mark you, people in New Orleans wouldn't believe me about 5 November.
As for my ignorance of the fact that All Saints' Day is for all souls, not just saints, this is something I realised fairly early on in my research; however, when the BBC has asked you to do a talk specifically on saints, you don't like to dwell on the fact that they've based it on the wrong premise. And my talk wasn't entirely wasted: it got a good piece out of P.J.Kavanagh and some chuckling letters from septuagenarian agnostics among Radio 4 listeners.
Miles Kington
51 Ladbroke Grove, London W11
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